


Transmutation

by cherimayo



Category: How to Survive Camping - Fainting--Goat
Genre: ?? idk man feel free to read it however you want, Asexual Character, Companionable Snark, CupKate, Explicit Language, F/M, Queerplatonic Relationships, Self-Discovery, just a lil casual PDA on beau's journey to becoming a literal god nbd, no major spoilers but id recommend being caught up to that point!, r/nosleep, rated for language, set somewhere mid-book 3, two weirdos tryna sort their shit out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29171700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherimayo/pseuds/cherimayo
Summary: In which Kate receives an unexpected visitor, a hypothesis is tested, boundaries are pushed, and banter abounds.
Relationships: Beau | The Man With The Skull Cup & Kate, Beau | The Man With The Skull Cup/Kate
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Transmutation

**Author's Note:**

> i love these two!! i love their bitchy banter and their evolving relationship!!!! this ended up being far more snarkiness than fluff but what else would you expect from such enormous drama queens!
> 
> set at some point mid-book 3, before the fomorian and his thorns come into play, and while kate and beau are still having knife-fighting practice every morning. kind of ignores the main plot as well buuut ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ let them rest!!

I still haven’t quite figured out the minutiae of how summoning Beau works. I now know that it’s the resolve to seek him out that counts, not necessarily the presence of alcohol. But when he appeared on my doorstep one (otherwise uneventful) evening, I started to wonder how exactly he picked up on my intentions. Did I need something from him at that moment? Not at all. Had he crossed my mind shortly before (amongst any number of other thoughts bouncing around in my head, as per usual)? ...Perhaps.

“I didn’t mean to call you,” I blurted after several moments of awkward silence. At that, he rolled his eyes, his stoic demeanor instantly shifting to something markedly more irritated.

“Just because I don’t have a will doesn’t mean I lack physical agency,” he griped, brushing past me and into the house as I held the door open for him. “I can go where I please without being _called_.” Dumbly, I watched him set his cup aside and make himself comfortable on my couch before I slowly closed the door.

I nearly breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t bothered to ask what I meant by my stilted greeting, but that brief moment of repose was quickly overshadowed by a knot of anxiety growing in my stomach. If I hadn’t inadvertently summoned him, then why the hell was he here?

My hand still on the doorknob, I ran my tongue along the back of my teeth, almost afraid to ask. I wasn’t currently dealing with any pressing incidents or especially troublesome creatures, but maybe he came bearing some bad news, and that was about to change real fast.

“Uh... did something happen?” I finally found the courage to voice, turning back towards him. He merely raised a single, heavily-pierced eyebrow at me.

“Things are always happening around here,” he remarked dryly.

He thinks he’s _sooo_ fucking clever.

I snorted, and stepped over to the kitchen to start making some coffee—anything to busy my hands with while I tried to work off some of this nervous energy that had started to wind up in my body like a spring.

“So what brings you to my humble abode, then?” I called out, not looking over to him as I pulled two mugs out of the cabinet. “It’s a bit late for another round of sparring lessons.”

When he didn’t respond immediately, I figured I had two options. In keeping with my past attempts at minimizing the discomfort he would experience by speaking to me at length, I could keep rattling off possible reasons for his visit in the form of yes/no questions; or, I could wait and see if he’d suck it up and be forthcoming anyway, since there was a good chance he’d just up and leave if he found me or my questions too aggravating. While he was far from the most pleasant company, I was itching to know what exactly he was doing here—he’d never been one for social calls.

I managed to keep from harassing him the whole time I spent preparing the coffee (although he did offer a nod at my silent question as I held up what was left of my Bailey’s). But as I handed him his drink in a secondhand “Live Laugh Love” mug, sitting down with my own a respectable distance away, my frayed nerves finally snapped.

“Beau... Is something wrong?” I asked, trying my hardest to keep the worry from my voice. He took a long, thoughtful sip, staring off into space, still saying nothing even after he returned his mug to the table, resting it next to his skull cup. Then he simply turned his gaze to me, expression entirely blank, not speaking a word.

I let my breath hiss out sharply between my teeth in frustration. “This shit is ridiculous,” I muttered. “I’m starting to think you’re just a total masochist and you only keep following me around ‘cause it hurts you.” To be honest, I was _also_ starting to think _I_ might be something of a masochist—why the hell else would I stick around this goddamn campground, and willingly associate with creatures as infuriating as this guy?

“You’re not entirely wrong, I suppose,” he finally spoke, and I jerked over to face him in surprise.

“Sorry, what?” I replied with a huff of disbelieving laughter. He leaned further into the back of the couch and tilted his chin over in my direction.

“It does... pain me to be doing this,” he acknowledged, his voice a bit quieter than usual. “But I have some answers of my own I’m trying to find.”

After he didn’t make any move to elaborate, I frowned, setting my drink aside and turning to face him a bit better. “I didn’t figure your kind was predisposed to existential questions,” I said, eyeing him appraisingly. “What could I possibly know that you don’t? And what happened to your whole ‘I understand my nature far better than humans can of their own’ bit?”

A flicker of annoyance crossed his features, and I almost couldn’t keep from cracking a smile at how _predictable_ it was. Beau could—and _should_ —always keep me on my toes, but it was nice to be able to anticipate even something small like this.

“Make no mistake, I’m assuming you’re in even further over your head than I,” he said wryly, “although for different reasons.”

Now what the _hell_ was that supposed to mean? God knows I was used to him being exasperatingly vague, but now that he was apparently the one seeking answers instead of me, I didn’t have a clue why he wouldn’t just voice his questions like a regular goddamn person. _But he’s_ not _a regular person,_ I have to keep reminding myself, even though—sitting on my worn-out couch like this, sipping boozy coffee out of a ridiculous thrift-store mug, absentmindedly tapping his converse-clad foot against the stubborn bloodstain on my carpet—there are moments where he could almost have me fooled.

That’s a dangerous line of thinking, though, and every time it pops up I have to make a conscious effort to shake it. It’s strange to remember that not so long ago, there wasn’t a chance in the world I’d suddenly slip into humanizing the asshole who had caused me countless moments of illness, exasperation, terror, and all-around unpleasantness.

But, well, there I was.

My mind was racing over his response and what it could mean, not to mention my general anxiety about the situation, unsure if I should question him further or wait for him to expound on his own. By the time I looked back up to him, it felt like there was suddenly less space between us than there had been before.

He stared at me intently, an indecipherable expression in his hooded eyes that made my stomach twist. I couldn’t tell you why—I’ve seen the faces of plenty of his moods, from enigmatic to irked to outright hostile, but something about this one gave me pause. Analytical for sure, which wasn’t unusual in itself, but it seemed like the edge was... taken off a bit, so to speak. There was something about it that shifted, ever so slightly, until it seemed that he was almost... bewildered?

_When did he get so close?_

I almost laughed to see him appearing as befuddled as I was with respect to our current circumstances. It was then that I realized, though, it wasn’t just confusion that had appeared on his face; gradually, it strengthened into a steely kind of resolve. I’d never seen this directed at me quite so closely before, and it made my blood run hot.

Before long I found myself with one hand pressed tentatively to the front of his hoodie- whether it was to keep him at bay or to ground myself somehow, I’m still not entirely sure, but I couldn’t muster up any real force behind it. He didn’t quite seem to be poised to attack me, and also didn’t seem to be caused discernible pain by my action, so instead I just... left it there.

What I felt in his chest wasn’t a heartbeat. This was initially unsurprising, but then puzzling as I recalled his vitals from his past hospital visit—the staff had been able to take his pulse without a problem. Perhaps there was some degree of masking (subconscious, or not) that his humanoid body engaged in, molding itself to meet the expectations of those around it, somehow. I didn’t know what it meant that he didn’t feel the need to feign a heartbeat around me.

What I did feel wasn’t totally far from one, though—it was more like a _thrumming_ , with a barely-discernible pattern of pulses beneath my palm, but lacking the deeper _thud_ or steady rhythm of a heartbeat proper. I could feel it rushing throughout his whole body, coalescing with a frenetic energy at the point where my hand met the center of his chest.

And it was moving _fast_.

My own heartbeat was sounding in my ears, and my fingertips tensed unconsciously. I brought my gaze up from my own hand to his face, slowly, cataloguing every piercing I encountered on my way upward to meet his eyes. I wasn’t _scared_ to return his gaze—although maybe I should’ve been, maybe I never should’ve _stopped_ constantly fearing for my life around him—but I was a bit weak-kneed at the thought of facing the intensity I knew awaited there.

After a few moments of silence, I finally glanced up. His posture and gaze hadn’t wavered at all, and I suddenly felt the need to squirm, to laugh, to push off of him or make some assholeish comment that would make him scoff and stalk away into the woods, anything to break off the weird, staticky tension that was practically crackling in the small amount of space between our bodies. My conscience caught up before I could act, though, and I realized that—even if he didn’t show it—he was probably experiencing palpable discomfort, even pain, undoubtedly more intense than the confusion and awkwardness I was manufacturing in the silence of my own head.

I opened my mouth to apologize (although, for what? The proximity? We’d been closer than this before. For my forwardness? He’s the one who had initiated, and was arguably invading _my_ space. For the pain he was in? It’s not like anything I could say would help). Before I could form the words, though, he shook his head minutely, as if to cut me off before I even began. He could’ve simply clapped a hand over my mouth or even reached out to grab my throat, as he had plenty of times in the past, and I was so shocked by this dramatic gesture of courtesy alone that it worked—I shut right up.

Then—his expression once more totally unreadable—he put one of his hands on my shoulder, took my chin in the other, and kissed me.

The metallic chill of his various oral piercings was a shocking contrast to the warmth of his mouth. I don’t know why I was surprised by the heat, but I couldn’t help but wonder if his body _always_ felt like this. Was his flesh always warm, when not for the benefit of observant humans? Had any humans been this close before me?

This kiss wasn’t forceful, like our first, where his primary objective was being aggressive to the point where he could ensure that we’d swap enough spit to catalyze what I’d swallowed from his cup. This was merely a press of lips, a slight tilt of the head, a barely-there flicker of tongue just as he pulled away; drawing back to resume his unnerving, unwavering gaze. I hadn’t closed my eyes while it was happening, but he had, briefly ( _where did he learn that? Why would he do that?_ ), the furrow between his brows never smoothing out.

I stayed where I was, scared to speak, scared to breathe; his hands were still on me, and one of mine still on his chest, the other sweaty and fisted in my own lap. I could feel the tips of my ears start to turn pink.

“What the fuck, Beau,” was all I could think to say.

He blinked, exasperation slowly beginning to spread across his features. I felt a rush of relief that we were back in familiar territory, and almost expected him to get up and walk away right then and there, but he didn’t, choosing instead to scowl at me. _There’s_ the Beau I know.

“I hope you weren’t expecting some sort of magical, life-changing revelation from that,” I said, trying to force some levity into my tone and hoping my voice wasn’t shaking. “That’s not— _none_ of this is—really my thing.”

“I wouldn’t dare to set my standards so high,” he replied with a wry twist to his mouth. I rolled my eyes, but my shoulder burned where his hand still rested, and I swore I could still feel the chill of cool metal against my lips.

“Fair enough,” I said. “Care to explain, then? You said you were... looking for answers?”

He nodded slowly and removed his hands from my shoulders, his gaze drifting as he seemed to become lost in thought.

“The sharpness—” he started, brow furrowing slightly as he pursed his lips for a second, glancing somewhere to the side of me, “—the _wrongness_ that I feel when fraternizing with those of your kind, the resistance to going against my nature—“

He stopped again, face gone blank, and I waited, not wanting to say anything to interrupt this unusually forthcoming flow of information.

“The closer I have drawn... to _you_...” He squeezed the words out through gritted teeth. “The more it feels _different_ , somehow. Like some other sensation entirely is... pushing it out of my awareness.” I felt the sudden urge to laugh aloud at the sudden irritation apparent on his face as he narrowed his eyes at me. Oddly enough, it didn’t feel threatening—there was no resentment there, only genuine frustration, with a healthy dose of confusion. (Don’t ask me how I could deduce that from a glance—just know that I’ve been the object of his undivided annoyance more times than I can count, and this... wasn’t it.)

“That’s news to me,” I said. But, upon thinking about it for more than a split second, I realized that it really wasn’t—while he certainly still had moments where he’d explicitly voice his discomfort, his tolerance for interaction with me seemed to have skyrocketed over the past several months. After all, we saw each other once a day now, at a minimum. Not to mention that we experienced a healthy amount of physical contact from all the knife fighting… He looked as if he'd resigned himself to the stupidity of my statement, so I pressed on in some hope of redeeming myself. “How long have things been feeling… different?”

He heaved a long-suffering sigh, stretching out his legs and tipping his head against the back of the couch. “That’s not a helpful question. I experience time differently than you do.” Because of _course_ he did. Silly me.

I frowned at him, but he had closed his eyes, so after a moment I nudged his foot with my own to get his attention. “Hey, asshole. Don’t you think you owe it to me to at least _try_ to talk this out, since you apparently just used me as a guinea pig—without my consent, I might add— for whatever weird soul-searching you’re trying to do?”

Maybe I was mistaken, but I thought I saw the corners of his mouth twitch up in a smirk. “Oh, so now we’re going to discuss debts, are we?”

Oh shit. Oh _fuck_. I started rambling again before he could continue any further down _that_ road.

“We never even talked about how shitty it was when you kissed me the first time,” I argued, feeling my face heat up at the memory—although more from frustration than anything else. “I don’t know how much you know or care about our stupid little human ‘customs’ or ‘boundaries,’ but that gesture could have been really significant to some people, you know.”

He actually did smile a little, then, which genuinely spooked me. Opening his eyes and sitting back up to face me, he gave me a look that seemed just the tiniest bit patronizing. “Hm. I suppose I do recall your desire to ‘talk about that kiss some other day,’ I believe is what you said.”

I was almost more annoyed that he remembered that point but had continually chosen to ignore it. Before I could respond, though, he spoke up again. “I get the sense that the action I took held less meaning for you than it would for most. Or a different meaning, at the very least.”

“Well, sure,” I stammered, not certain if I should even bother trying to explain the nuances of human sexuality and romantic attraction to a literal otherworldly cryptid. “You’re not wrong, but still, you can’t just—“

“I saved your life that day, _yet_ _again_ , correct?” he interrupted, his self-satisfied voice practically a drawl. “I believe your kind has a saying about a ‘means to an end.’ But fine. I may not have anything more to add on that, but as I said, I did come here today with the hope to elucidate a few of my own questions.”

“You’re lucky I don’t feel more violated than I do,” I grumbled. “Then again, you’ve probably had my stance on that kind of shit all figured out for ages now, huh.”

He didn’t deign to respond to that, which probably meant I was right. “So what about you?” I prodded, lightly kicking his leg in case he started to space out again. “Do you find, um… gratification in that sort of thing? Can you feel attraction the way that some humans do?”

He cast a pointed glance at my foot that had dared to kick him—which I quickly drew back towards me—before looking off into the distance somewhere over my shoulder, considering. “I don’t feel ‘desire’ in the traditional sense, no, the way much of your kind would consider ‘normal.’ Some entities do,” he added, undoubtedly referring to succubi and their various incarnations, “as you know, but their desire serves a greater purpose. They derive sexual pleasure from their acts, certainly, but that is not the sole motivator.” He paused again, moving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, his movements strangely slow and measured. “However, the way I manifest on this plane is... malleable. I am, _unfortunately_ , dependent upon humanity’s perception of me for a number of things.”

“Like a name,” I said. He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Very good, Kate. Yes. Like a name.”

“So,” he continued, “sexuality—in human terms—is not part of my whole ‘deal,’ so to speak. But if, by my continued proximity with your kind, certain aspects of the way you go about your lives, the expectations you have, were to gradually mold me… there is little I can do to prevent this. I’d certainly hope you’d have picked up on that much.” He glowered at me, as if daring me to say something clueless. I almost retorted with something about how he never gives me enough credit, but a) that wasn’t quite true, and b) I sure didn’t want to push my luck.

Still, I think I understood what he was getting at—something in line with my earlier theory of how his body shaped itself to meet the human world. It was only natural that this process would evolve, as other entities’ had, and I suddenly felt grateful that he’d just started feeling the need to get a little handsy from time to time instead of devising some new hunting method like certain other creatures I’d encountered.

I couldn't help but wonder, though, how long this process had been in motion. Could his nature, by association with me, be transmuted into something different altogether?

“So how does this affect your goal?” I asked cautiously. “You’re not trying to _become_ human, but you don’t have control over what traits you, um, absorb? How are you planning to utilize the things you _need_ us to give you, like a name, but overlook the rest?”

“I don’t know _everything_ , Kate,” he snapped, with enough bite in his voice to make me shrink back in surprise. “I’m still trying to figure out what this all means.” His posture stiffened, and he jammed his hands even deeper into his pockets as he sulked in the corner of the couch.

His mood had quickly gone sour, and—while I had honestly been kind of interested in seeing more of that experimental, almost sly attitude he had been demonstrating before—at least I knew how to deal with this one. Wait, scratch that—he kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, while stubbornly refusing to make full eye contact. I hadn't seen this before.

Was he... _nervous?_

Look—I’m not good with this kind of stuff. I promptly stood up and took our empty mugs to the kitchen, busying myself with washing and drying them for the next few minutes. By the time I returned to the living room, he was standing by the door, skull cup in hand. His irritation seemed to have cooled a little; his face had settled back into its typical blasé expression. Once again, I almost said something, but stopped myself—who knows if he’d accomplished what he came here to do, and it was entirely possible that my questions had pissed him off enough that he cut his plans short. I just wished he’d _tell_ me what he was thinking. Would I have to stay on my guard, constantly expecting him to try something like this again? Should I offer to be a willing accomplice in whatever exercises of self-discovery he sought, if only so I could have some idea of what he hoped to achieve? Had I been so annoying already that he’d chosen to just give up? Was I going to start finding the mutilated corpses of our “shippers” from Reddit all over my campground?

I think my face must have twisted a bit, betraying all those thoughts as they ran through my head, because he clicked his tongue at me, tilting his head to give me a once-over as he hovered just inside the doorway to the front porch. I think his appraising gaze must have made _me_ nervous, too, because just as he finally turned to go, I blurted out something really ridiculous.

“W-well, uh, if you ever feel the need to... try that again... just let me know,” I offered, awkwardly, as I felt the blush begin to crawl back up my neck.

 _So_ smooth, Kate.

He looked over his shoulder at me thoughtfully. “I should let you know, should I?”

“Well, I’d certainly appreciate a heads up...” I began, trailing off as his expression darkened, and my stomach started to plummet. Had that come across too much like an expectation, or a demand? Did I really think he’d humor my silly little preferences when he’d always done as he pleased? He could literally flay me alive at any moment and I had the _audacity_ to suggest that he inform me of his intentions with me? Something he’d said not too long ago echoed in my mind—“ _You cannot simply tell me what you want and expect me to do it_ ”— and I felt a nervous sweat begin to prickle at the back of my neck. My fingernails cut into my palms as I balled my hands into fists at my sides, realizing I had nothing to offer in return for the courtesy I asked of him.

He put his cup back down and, agonizingly slowly, began to pace towards where I stood.

Fuck. Shit. _Fuck. Shit._ I stood frozen, uncertain, not wanting to move. He stepped so close our noses nearly brushed, but I didn’t dare to back away.

“In that case,” he began, his voice low as he rolled the words around languidly in his metal-studded mouth, “I’m going to do it again before I go.”

“Okay,” I managed to squeak out just before he gripped both my shoulders and closed the barely-there distance to press his mouth to mine again.

I’ve said before that I’ve never understood the hype around physical intimacy—I had honestly come to assume I was asexual—but something about this particular instance gave me a rush in my stomach like an elevator drop, and _not_ because I was repulsed. Is it kind of fucked up that it took a couple smooches from an objectively creepy, morally dubious, literal life-threatening supernatural entity to get me feeling a bit less... apathetic about this kind of thing? Probably. (Definitely.) But it’s strange—maybe the suspense, the anticipation of it all, the weighty stares and laser focus I’d been subjected to ever since he showed up that night, were priming me to respond if he tried something again.

Because, uh, I _did_ respond. And not by squirming out of his grip or shoving him away, in case you were wondering.

“How do you feel?” I asked, tentatively, catching my breath and tipping my head back against the wall to better survey his expression. His gaze had dropped to my collarbone, lazy and unfocused, and he removed his ringed hands from my shoulders.

“This has been… informative.”

“Uh… that’s good?” I said, unsure what to make of the face he was pulling. He still seemed to be lost in thought, but not not as grumpily as he often was. It seemed after a few moments that he wasn't planning to elaborate, though; so I slipped to the side of him and pulled thedoor open, not wanting to give the impression that I was roping him into more conversation.

He picked up his cup again, turned, and left. I watched him step off the porch and walk down the driveway.

“See you tomorrow,” I called after him on a sudden impulse. He waved a hand lazily over his shoulder, turning to vanish down the stretch of road in front of my house.

Instead of the deep, bone-chilling, utterly palpable dread that tends to follow on the heels of my most questionable decisions, I felt something... warm. Just a flicker deep in my chest, but unmistakably there. I turned back into my house and closed the door behind me.

What a strange thing it was, to seek a name. To crave meaning so desperately that one would evolve to go against its own nature, to reach out toward permanence however it could grasp it. Desire for existence coalesced into an inescapable pull towards the kind it most loathed, but was forced to rely on for the sake of its existence on this plane; and apparently, a pull toward the person who found herself wrapped up in this elaborate, long-winded exchange of favors and adventures.

I got the feeling we both still had a lot to learn.

**Author's Note:**

> TLDR all of us shippers on reddit literally turned beau thirsty. good work y'all <3
> 
> i mostly just wrote this for myself after binging the entirety of HTSC in three days, and not being able to get enough of the tension between kate and beau 👀 🔥 i hope anyone who's stumbled across this enjoyed it! i definitely hope to write more fics for this universe, the premise and characters are all so intriguing!!
> 
> it's also super important to me, as someone on the asexual spectrum myself, to see a canonically aroace main character and to respect the way kate has expressed that throughout the series so far! however, ace/aro people can still have a nuanced relationship with sexual/romantic intimacy and engage in that as well, despite any lack of attraction- i have no idea where the author is planning to take beau and kate's relationship, but i hoped to write something that felt authentic to both the established setting and my own experiences, and i'm pretty happy with it!
> 
> thanks for reading, and remember- DON'T FOLLOW THE DAMN LIGHTS


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